


Life of the artist as a (not so) old man

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [115]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 13:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10163759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Leo convinces Blaine to have a double-interview with him as a way to open his year-long book tour. Blaine is not very comfortable with the idea of putting themselves out there like that - their love and family should not be shared with Leo's fans - but then Leo smiles and that changes everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I'm trying to be calm, but this is SO exciting for me! _Life of the artist as a (not so) old man_ is exactly the 100th story written for the Leoverse, and it's so fitting that it's a story about Blaine and Leo and their love story that I want to cry of joy! My babies are beautiful and I love them so much.

“I thought they stopped doing these kinds of things when I was a kid,” Blaine says, arranging the microphone on his shirt by himself. He's nervous. Not the kind of nervous that makes him rethink his choices, but still nervous. Possibly because this wasn't his idea and Mark only managed to convince him because he had a very good bottle of Chianti to offer in return. It was a proper bribe from someone who is not even his own agent. Twice as bad. “I mean, I have clear memories of seeing this on TV while my parents were watching it. We're talking about a long time ago.”

Leo is sitting in front of a mirror. One of the lovely make-up artists of the show is trying to make sense of his unruly curly hair. He didn't even try to put on his mike, he let somebody else fumble with it. “As a matter of fact, they're making a huge comeback,” he says. “Everybody is doing this right now, and Mark thought it was the best way to start the promotional tour.”

“What do I have to do with it?” Blaine asks, watching himself in the mirror. He puts a lot of effort in taking care of himself and it's really rewarding when his own reflection pleases him. It's hard to keep up with a husband who's twenty years younger then him and doesn't seem to age as quickly as normal people do, but sometimes Blaine's hard work pays off. He doesn't look one day older than forty, which is remarkable since he's closer to sixty.

“People like to know about us,” Leo explains. “What we're doing, how things are going with the family and so on. And usually my tour starts after a long radio-silence because I was either rushing to finish the book or enjoying a break. Or both. It's been months since my last life-related post on my blog. People want updates.”

“You could just post something,” Blaine grumbles, pulling at the collar and cuffs of his shirt. The size is right, but the shirt doesn't fit perfectly and that's annoying.

“It's way funnier this way.” Leo sounds excited. “I've always wanted to do one of this interviews.”

“It's all set.” Mark enters the room, his eyes fixed on his tablet. Blaine doesn't think he's ever seen him without it. “You're up in twenty minutes.”

The guy is tall and slim, around Leo's age and with Leo's same casual attitude; except that Mark wears actual suits and Blaine has never been able to get Leo out of his t-shirt-and-hoodie look. Behind Mark comes Blaine's trusty Dottie, his own agent. She's here to join forces with Mark and make sure nothing that will be said or done today can damage his image. This is the first time they have to work together, but they clicked right from the start, and they are a ruthless, killing machine.

“What about the questions?” Blaine asks. This is not his first interview, obviously, and with his upcoming new role in the fall is not even going to be the last. He knows how these things can go sometimes. It's always better to be prepared.

“Pre-arranged,” Mark comforts him, instantly. He gives them both two pieces of papers with the list of questions on it. “Me and Mrs. Dottie approved each and every one of them personally. They want spontaneity and I had to promise you were not going to read them beforehand, so you better be good at lying.”

“I'm an actor,” Blaine points out.

Mark doesn't look away from his tablet, probably sending e-mail and confirming billion-dollars contracts while he keeps talking to them. “You're not the one who worries me, Mr. Anderson.”

“I can lie!” Leo protests. Blaine, Mark and even Dottie looks up at him with a very questioning and quite offensive look on their face. “What? I can!”

Leo is many things, but he's not a liar, not even when he would like to be one or when it'd be useful to him. He's genetically unable not to say what he thinks or feels. He tries, of course, like anybody else, but he's not very good at it. Sometimes, especially when he wants to convince himself of something that is untrue, he looks very convinced but he fails to convey the message to other people. You can almost always tell when he's hiding something because it shows up in a million different ways on his body. Or maybe that's just Blaine. “Just try your best, honey, okay?” Blaine says. Then, he quickly reads the questions and frowns. “Describe your sexual life in three words?”

Marks was clearing expecting the question. “They wanted to ask you your favorite sex position,” he explains. “We deemed that inappropriate for Leo's fanbase.”

“And this one is?” Blaine inquires.

“It's more generic, therefore it's okay as long as you don't go into details,” Mark explains. “It's raunchy enough to make teens giggle, but safe enough not to have their parents bite our ass.”

“And what does it have to do with Leo's work?”

“Nothing,” Mark shrugs. “But this interview is all about his life, not his work.”

“I'm not very comfortable with this,” Blaine says. He didn't want to say it – it was already pretty obvious in his opinion – but apparently it's necessary.

“It doesn't have to be deep,” Leo says. He's smiling when Blaine looks up at him. “It's not a serious interview. It's supposed to be playful. Just have fun with it. You can even mock me. A little.”

“Exactly,” Mark nods. “People love you two together and don't have nearly enough of you. Give them something, it's gonna help boost the book even more.”

“As if a sixty dates book tours wasn't enough,” Blaine sighs, thinking about all the time Leo will spend away from home. Ironically, Blaine is not the one who can't deal with it. It's gonna be three months of Leo videocalling from every part of the Country, complaining that he wants to come home or have Blaine there with him – which he'll manage to have, insisting enough.

“That's a very optimistic prevision,” Mark snorts. “You're not counting the international dates, the interviews and at least five book fairs all over the world. This is the sixth book in the saga, it closes the second trilogy,” Marks waits for the make up artist to go away before going on, “somebody dies in it. We have to go big.”

“You never have pity on me, do you?” Blaine asks, sighing.

“I'm not paid for that,” Mark says, smiling. Then he claps twice. “Come on, it's time.”

The TV studio is huge and buzzing with people. Nobody seems to be standing still. Anywhere he looks, he can see someone doing something. Blaine has been interviewed several times on TV, but studios like these have never been his cup of tea. He has always preferred the warmer, more intimate feeling of theaters. The enclosed space of a green room, the cushioned armchairs and the relaxed talks, which were more conversations than interviews, lacking the lens of a camera aimed at you like the barrel of a gun.

The theater world is considered old and stuck in time, somehow, definitively moving at a slower pace than movies and television, but that's what Blaine loves the most about it. Theater has its rules and demands its sacrifices, but it gives you time to think, to breath, to take into account what you're doing and, most of all, where you are because the theater – the space you act in – is part of the job, not a place you're doing your job in. You have to live in it, with it; day after day it becomes part of you and of the people that work around you. Everybody respects it as if it was a leaving, breathing thing. 

Here, instead, people run, push and shove their way around. They have no respect for the place, and why should they? This is just a warehouse where someone has stored a few cameras, a background and a set of stools. It's impersonal, surgical, practical, it only serves the purpose, that's what makes Blaine so uncomfortable, so to speak. The magic will happen later, on the TV screen – with their closer shots, their sound effects, their close ups – but they will see nothing of it while they're here, and that feels so wrong to him.

“So,” Mark is leading them towards the very set of stools. The background behind it is a pale blue, completely non-descriptive. “You'll be sitting next to each other, the split screen will be added later,” he quickly explains. “Leo goes first after every question. You can react to what the other says. In fact, it'd be nice if you do.”

“Who's gonna ask the questions?” Blaine asks, looking around for some suit-wearing host of some sort.

“Me,” Mark answers, and when Blaine gives him a puzzled look, he adds, “A voice actor will record them later anyway. This is just to give you the cue. Today it's just me, you and John the camera operator.”

John the camera operator waves at them before placing two threatening looking cameras in front of them. Blaine is totally disapproving all of this. They're gonna have this interview in the midst of the coming and going of hundreds of people prepping this place for God knows how many other micro-events like this. 

“If everything goes smoothly, this is gonna last twenty minutes top,” Mark continues, and then sighs. “Blaine, can you give me one of those famous charming smiles?” Blaine, as the very good actor that he is, instantly retrieves his perfect smile from the deepest pit of disapproval he's feeling right now. Mark smiles too, not because he believes in the smile, but because he got what he wanted. “Leo, don't look down, don't speak too fast and be concise. I don't want another Los Angeles.”

“What happened in Los Angeles?” Blaine asks, turning towards his husband as a pretty young girl comes to fix the microphone on the lapel of his jacket. Leo just chuckles.

“Let's say he doesn't like cameras that much,” Mark answers for him. “Blog, Twitter, you name it, but put him in front of a camera and he forgets how cool he can be when he wants to.”

Leo leans over, virtually crossing the line that will be added between them in post-production, and kisses him on his cheek. “I lost it. Never looked in the camera, rumbled for minutes, following my train of thoughts, but no apparent logic. I looked on drugs, it was a train wreck.”

“Were you?”

“What?”

“On drugs,” Blaine says.

Mark frowns. “Not on my watch, Anderson,” he says, and there's almost an hint of outrage in his voice. “It was just a bad day. We all have those. Now, are we ready?”

Blaine looks at Leo suspiciously, but his husband blows him another kiss and mouths “Not on drugs, I promise,” and he believes it; also because he has no reason not to. It's just weird that Leo never told him about that, but that's possibly because it was an embarrassing moment, and Leo always tends to avoid saying anything about those. “Yes, let's get this over with.”

“Okay. Let's start,” Mark grabs a chair nearby, something Blaine doesn't even know how he managed to see since he's looking at the tablet's screen, from which he must be reading the questions. “Name?”

“Leo,” Leo promptly answers. He's not exactly sitting on the stool, but perched upon it like a very slim, very curly parrot.  
Blaine has to really fight against himself not to show any sign of the annoyance he's feeling right now. He even manages to keep a sigh to himself. “Blaine,” he says to the camera, his charming smile showing nothing but will to be sitting there, answering silly questions.

“Last name?” Mark continues.

“Karofksy-Hummel in Anderson,” Leo answers, chuckling. He says it pretty much as he would say it in high school during roll call. Minus the Anderson, of course.

Then, Mark looks at him. Blaine looks back at Mark. This is stupid, but he hasn't had a stellar career to fail miserably at this. “Anderson,” he says, looking down just for a moment, but never truly looking away. Playing bashful for the audience.

“Are you married?” Mark asks.

“Yes,” Leo answers, showing the wedding ring on his left hand. He makes it turn around his ring finger with his thumb in an automatic, nervous gesture.

“Unfortunately,” Blaine answers. Mark snorts and Leo reaches out to shove him away. His hand will look funny crossing the split screen. Blaine genuinely laughs. He might have found a way to survive this.

“Do you have kids?” Mark asks.

“Three,” Leo answers, showing three fingers. “Timmy, Harper and Logan.”

“I'd say four,” Blaine reasons out loud, knowing that the audience will hear Leo's answer first, “including my husband.” Here comes another shove. Mark laughs this time, and then he covers his mouth, trying to make as less noise as possible.

“Your favorite food,” Mark asks away once he finds his professional voice again.

“Uh, that's hard,” Leo mulls it over, which gives Blaine time to think about his own answer. “I'd say pizza. Oh, and every kind of junk food known to man. I can live off McDonald's for days if I feel like it.”

Blaine rolls his eyes. That's undeniably true, and it's also ridiculous since Leo can actually cook real food. It's almost offensive that someone who can make an entire meal from scratches loves junk food so much more. “I don't have a favorite food,” he answers, “but I do like to have dinner in nice restaurants, which happens very rarely since my whole family would rather eat burger and fries in the car than sit down at a table. I live a clown-ridden life.”

Dottie smirks, recognizing Blaine's undeniable talent in turning real-life facts into very dramatic lines of a play. He could go through a whole day just playing a part, that's why he's such a good actor. Leo knows that too. He can also tell when Blaine is acting and when he's not, he knows the real Blaine after all. Having him act in a conversation would have been upsetting, but being involved in the charade makes him relax. He can follow Blaine's lead and play along. His whole body language changes. Suddenly, he's more laid back, smiling more.

“This one's gonna be hard for both of you and for different reasons,” Mark says, reading from his tablet. “Your favorite movie.”

“I have too many!” Leo chuckles, throwing his hands up in surrender. Anyone who read at least three consecutive months of his blog knows that he watches an insane amount of movies and TV shows, he obsesses over things and he's very vocal in expressing his opinion on what he watches or reads. “But if I have to choose, I'd say Winterland. Yeah, Winterland. Anyone who knows me at least a little knows that it's my favorite movie of all time. I love everything about it. The mix of genres, the references, the narrative, the photography. I think I own any version of that movie ever released and every piece of gadget ever produced, including the books of the expanded universe.”

“Stop him now, or this interview will go on forever,” Blaine intervenes. “He knows half the movie by heart, including the deleted scenes. You don't want him to keep going.”

Leo shoves him, and Mark chuckles again. This shouldn't be happening – them interrupting each other – because they are supposed to be having this interview separately and in two different places, but nobody at home believes this anymore, so it's just going to be funny. “So, what's your favorite movie, Blaine?”

“Not Winterland,” Blaine answers, with an excessively serious face that makes Leo laughs. His husband actually bends over, and he's so genuinely amused by his words that Blaine feels happy and smiles tenderly too, looking at him. Leo laughs a lot, but never like this. This seems a thing of the past, so Blaine is happy to have coerced it out of him. “I love the very old classics, those my mother and grandmother used to watch. If I have to choose something more recent, I'd say Kumar's latest work was outstandingly intriguing.”

Everybody looks at him as if he was crazy, but he doesn't even flinch. He lives in a house where an apocalyptic summer blockbuster is considered a masterpiece, no disbelieving glare can touch him anymore. Kumar is a Los Angeles-based Indian film director internationally renown for his intimate way of narrating the endless nuances of human condition. It doesn't surprise him that they don't like him, since in his movies there are no explosions or sex with aliens within the first ten minutes, or ever.

Mark clears his throat. “Let's move on,” he says. “Something you're afraid of.”

“Losing Blaine.” Leo's answer is so quick and so automatic that it makes him look down, bashfully. He realizes it might be too sappy when it's too late. But he couldn't help it, and now he's blushing. “Too intense?” He tries to play it down, chuckling. “Um, I'm scared of snakes. I mean, I'm not really afraid of them, but they make me nervous.”

“Blaine?”

Blaine thinks about it. Leo's answer was heavy enough, and that forces him to be very shallow in his answer just to make everything funny again. “Wrinkles,” he says at last, his fake-serious face still on. “I can assure you, I scream like an eagle every time I see one in the mirror.”

“A thing you could never do without,” Mark continues reading the questions on the list. “Even I can answer this for you, Leo.”

Leo chuckles. “Three things. My husband, my tablet... and fruit cut into little pieces for breakfast,” he says, counting on his fingers.

Mark nods. “That's what I was talking about,” he comments. He's been organizing brunch as early job meetings with Leo for over five years now, and he knows that he only starts functioning with the right food in the right order, and little pieces of fruit that he can lazily keeps eating after everything else are kinda the last thing before pressing his start button. “Blaine?”

“My family,” he answers with a knowing, tender smile that shows his age way more than his face does. He knows Leo tends to forget his children when he's on auto-pilot, so he needs to compensate. 

Mark nods, possibly waiting for an answer like that. “What is the thing you're most proud of?”

“My books,” Leo answers, quite instantly. “They are the only things I made all by myself. For every other thing in my life I had help, which I'm grateful for, of course, but I couldn't take all the credit for those things. Instead, my books are mine alone.”  
Mark, Dottie and Leo, all turns to look at Blaine, who sighs. It's easier for him to list all the things he's not proud of. Not that he likes to dwell in regret or self-pity, it's just hard to forget what he shouldn't have done. Some of the worst aspects of Leo's personality, those are all his doing; and he's most certainly not proud of them. And going back a few years, he's not proud of several things he did to him or for him as well, they have a very complicated history, after all. He could say that he's proud of his career, which is true but would also make him look too full of himself, and somebody – many people, actually – already thinks that. So, of course, he goes for the most sensible answer. “I'm proud of where we are right now. We had a lot of rough patches, but we went through all of them and came out stronger and better.”

The sound that Leo makes after those words is ridiculous and makes Mark laugh. “Let's go on before you two start to stare into each other eyes and kill us all with your sappiness,” he says. “So, how did you two meet?”

“Oh boy! I wrote a book about it,” Leo exclaims, looking directly into the camera as if he were speaking to his audience. “Go read it!”

“I was invited to his parents' wedding,” Blaine explains, patiently. He remembers very well the first time he said that on TV. The interview had been planned for the specific purpose of clearing the point. Dottie had thought it was better if he explained his personal life before someone else did it. “Every time I tell this story, it sounds worse. It's supposed to get easier with time, but it doesn't.”

“Your first impression?” Mark asks.

“I hated him. He was there to broke up my parents,” Leo says, and he manages to put in his voice the same conviction he had back then. “Besides, he was too perfect, you know? One of those people who dress perfectly, speak perfectly and are perfectly charming, so everybody loves them. He was so annoying!”

Blaine chuckles. “He hated me because he thought I was there to ruin his fathers' wedding and, possibly, swipe one of them off his feet and snatch him away – which I was not. In fact, I was just a guest at that wedding, but he was six and I found him hilarious.”

“Was that first impression confirmed, then?” Mark asks.

“Absolutely,” Leo nods. “I dutifully hated him from when I was six until I was fifteen. He irritated me so much!”

Blaine chuckles. “I still find him hilarious to these days,” he says, looking over at Leo, who actually pouts. “So, yes, my first impression of him was confirmed.”

Mark looks at the next question on his tablet and, for a moment, he frowns as if he didn't expect it to be there, but that's quite impossible because Blaine has never seen him being less than prepared to anything that could happen work-wise. He clears his throat. “Who fell in love first?”

A slightly awkward silence falls after those words. Blaine sighs internally, knowing that question can be triggering sometimes, depending on his husband's mood. But Leo surprises him by chuckling. “Me, of course,” he says, blushing more than an adult man should. “I fell head over heels for him, and then proceeded to deny it for weeks until he forced me to say it. I was fifteen, it was in my job description.”

Blaine reads the embarrassment in his husband's voice, and he smiles because it's still lovely after all these years. “I don't know, it might have been that we fell in love at the same time,” he answers, pensively. “No, now that I think about it, he was probably the first one to realize he was really in love with me, but I was the first one to say it aloud.”

“Who's tidier?” Mark asks right away, eager to clear the air.

“Blaine.”  
“Me. Leo doesn't even know the meaning of the word tidy.” Leo can't argue with that. Even when he tries to put things away, he ends up making a mess. Whatever sense of tidiness he has, it only works in the kitchen. 

“Describe your sexual life in three words,” Mark goes on, and then he looks up, curious.

“Um, let's see,” Leo thinks about it for a while, counting on his fingers. “Exciting, satisfying and instrumental.”

Mark can help but laugh, probably because he never heard anyone defining their sexual life instrumental. But Blaine knows that that is exactly the word. Sex is instrumental in Leo's life. It's Blaine's fault, but he made peace with that already. “I would say enviable,” Blaine answers, “rich and definitely not suitable for my age.”

Mark chuckles. “Right, now a few quick questions,” he says, which translates to _Please, let's wrap this up. I've two meetings and three book presentations, and that's only before dinner_. “Something you like in him.”

“He always knows what to do in every situation, especially with me.”

“His constant, overwhelming excitement for certain things.”

Mark nods. This is the kind of quickness he likes. “Something you hate in him.”

“He sometimes forgets he's not actually my father, despite being the right age,” Leo says, sticking his tongue out in Blaine's direction. 

Blaine arches his eyebrow. “He sometimes forgets he's not my son, despite being the right age,” he retaliates. Leo pretends to have been shot and clutches at his heart with both his hands. Blaine snorts.

“Something you would change in him,” Mark goes on.

Leo seems to think about it. “He could be a little less self-assured, but at this point it would also be weird if he wasn't. It's been over twenty years, I'm used to him like that.”

“Get married, they said, it will be fun, they said,” Blaine sighs, shaking his head. Leo laughs. “I would like for Leo to be a little less stubborn than he is but, again, I don't think I could even recognize him if he wasn't. Stubbornness is Leo's main characteristic.”

“You two are so sappy that I'm gonna puke rainbows,” Mark sighs, shaking his head. “Could you buy clothes for him if you had to?”

“I wouldn't even know where to start looking,” Leo shakes his head, looking lost at the mere thought of going out there in the world and buy suits. “Where do tailors live?”

“I could buy him clothes with my eyes closed,” Blaine answers. He knows his husband's body well enough to get the size exactly right, “but I would rather not if it means to buy another t-shirt or another hoodie.”

Blaine knows Mark can relate to that. It's hard to convince Leo to wear something different from what he usually wears. Both men have problems doing that – even though Mark has less, which makes Blaine jealous. “Your best memory.”

It takes Leo less than two seconds two answer, and what comes out of his mouth catches Blaine by surprise. “Our first long trip,” he says. “It was a cruise in the Caribbean Sea. We had never spent so much time together away from my house or his before. It was incredibly sweet and exciting. And I also got to see Blaine trying to speak French, which was also very funny.”

Blaine agrees that that particular trip was really nice – despite being the consequence of an horrible Christmas lunch with Leo's parents that had prompted Blaine to want some time alone with Leo away from Lima, the United States and, possibly, the world – but it probably can't be considered their best memory. Still, he knows why Leo chose it, because pretty much all their best memories are things they can't talk about on TV. Besides, even this one was not television-friendly, and Leo skillfully forgot to mention that at the time of their first long trip in the Caribbean sea he was barely sixteen and everybody on that cruise ship thought he was Blaine's son.

Blaine has to tell a small lie too. “My best memory of us is Leo's face when I asked him to marry me and he realized I wasn't joking,” he says, actually chuckling. Leo's expression is branded in his brain forever. “He was so totally outraged that I had dared to make such a request!”

“Your worst memory?”

“Dublin,” they both answer at the same time. They don't turn to look at each other because they are not even remotely surprised that the other answers the same thing. Despite everything that happened in their past – some things way worse than a break up – nothing was ugliest than that moment because they didn't talk, their fight didn't really amount to anything. Leo just gave up. It had never happened before and it was never going to happen again after.

Mark looks at them, waiting for one of them to elaborate, but nobody says anything else. It's Blaine the one who speaks after a few seconds. “Let's just leave it at that,” he says, smiling. “Dublin is our worst memory. We love the city, but what happened in it not so much.”

Mark doesn't insist. He can recognize the real meaning behind Blaine's smile. “Alright, we're almost done. Is there something you haven't done together yet?”

They look at each other and Blaine is sure a quick summaries of all they've done together in the past twenty years is passing in front of Leo's eyes as it's doing in front of his own. “No,” they answer together.

“I suspected that,” Mark chuckles. “Okay, say goodbye and we're done.”

*

“Coke?” Logan asks, trying to reach the coveted bottle from his high chair. Luckily, a belt secures him in place.  
Timmy, seated right next to him, distracts him with a piece of chicken. “Here, eat this,” he says, pushing it against his mouth. Like a very diligent vacuum, Logan sucks it in in a second. “Any more coke tonight and you'll inflate like a balloon and fly away. Dads will never find you again.”

Logan instantly turns towards Leo, his face the perfect mask of shock. “Dad?!” He screeches.

“Timmy is joking, pumpkin,” Leo says, placing a pan on the table. “Timmy, stop scaring your brother.”

Timmy chuckles. “But it's so funny!”  
Harper, seated on another high chair on the other side of him, laughs just because he did. Her plastic plate contains pieces of grilled chicken and vegetables too, and she's lazily picking at it with a tiny plastic fork.

“Does everybody have a plate?” Leo asks, moving swiftly around the table, placing cutlery and bread baskets. By the way he's acting, it sounds like they're having a dinner party with a thousand guests, but it's just the five of them. Still, they're supposed to be out and at the movies in forty-five minutes, so they have to dine quickly, which tends to make Leo hysteric. “Yes, dad. Come on, sit down,” Timmy invites him. “We've got time.”

Leo sits down and starts serving himself. “I don't want to miss the trailers,” he says. And then scream, “Blaine!”

“I'm here,” Blaine says, entering the kitchen, eyes glued to his phone. He's watching a video, but the audio is low enough that they can only here a vague buzzing.

It only takes Timmy a few seconds to realize what it is. “Are you seriously watching that interview again?” He asks in disbelief.

“It's not my fault if it keeps showing up on my wall,” Blaine replies, sitting down. A plate of pasta lands in front of him.

“Come on, eat. I don't wanna miss...”

“...the trailers, I know, love,” Blaine says, looking up and smiling.

Leo sighs. “I had tons of interviews, why is that so special?”

“It's something around the minute 2.03,” Timmy reasons, munching away. “I don't know what yet, but when he gets there, he always makes a face... that face.”

Timmy points at him with his fork and everybody looks at Blaine, who's smiling sweetly and a little dumbly to whatever is on the screen right now. The point is, Blaine didn't think the interview was that great, but then he saw it, the actual footage, and his head just exploded. They are so good in it – the two of them – so in tune, composed and controlled, yet natural. And then Leo laughs, and he's so beautiful that his heart just warms up. He doesn't know why he feels so overwhelmed, maybe he's getting old, but he doesn't care.

When he looks up, his whole family is looking at him with what looks like disappointment. “What? I can't even look at my beautiful husband on TV, now?”

“I'm gonna puke,” Timmy groans.

“Coke, dad?” Logan tries again.

“You're gonna see him better and longer after the movie,” Leo says, grinning.

“I'm gonna puke harder,” Timmy groans more.

“Soda?” That's Logan again.

Blaine chuckles, and puts his phone away. Sure, he has every second of his life to stare at Leo, but it's nice to think he can bring a tiny, beautiful piece of his smile with him in his pocket.


End file.
